It doesn’t take long visiting with Kevin Bell to realize his love for the old west. One gets the impression early on that Bell is a cowboy at heart.
Kevin loves horses and his home just outside of El Paso, Ark., is surrounded by pasture for the horses he either owns, or has rescued, or boards for friends.
Bell was born in northwest Arkansas and has been riding and working with horses since he was 8 years old. His first job as a youngster was delivering the local newspaper, which he did many times on his faithful horse “Pixy.”
Kevin rodeoed as a teen and worked as a cowboy on a working ranch for many years. For the past 20 years, he has been fortunate to make a career as a farrier, competitive team roper and Western artist.
Kevin suggests that living the cowboy lifestyle has given him a unique insight and the inspiration into the details necessary to give his drawings, paintings and sculptures a true ring of the authentic West.
“I’m basically a self-taught artist,” he said. “I had some high school teachers encourage my art talents and I took some art classes my freshman year in college, but nothing really formal. I was too busy rodeoing and working. I have always loved to draw and I guess the older I get, the more I appreciate my art talents. Like a lot of sports, team roping takes its toll on you after a while, so I’m spending more time with my art work.”
Kevin’s success in team roping is evident by the saddles and countless trophies he has won that are on display in his den. As he mentioned, years of competitive team roping has taken a toll on Kevin’s body, especially his back, but that toll hasn’t stopped him completely.
He tries to participate when his farriering schedule and body allows. Kevin is a frequent participant in the weekly team roping practice and rodeos held at the Two Bar Two Arena in El Paso. Kevin’s source for art and life is not surprising.
“Thanks goodness for ‘Bonanza,’ ‘Wagon Train,’ ‘Gunsmoke,’ and all the old Western reruns,” he said. “I have hundreds of hours of those old shows taped. When I get ready to paint or sculpt, I’ll pop a tape in and go to work. It really helps.”
While Bell does not have a lot of hours in the art classroom, he has painted and sculpted under the guidance of some of the finest members of the Cowboy Artists of America, such as Fred Fellows, Martin Grelle, Bruce Greene and John Moyers. Bell has also studied and worked with renown local artist Barry Thomas. In 2009 Bell received what he considers his most prestigious request when he was commissioned to sculpt the Golden Rock Award for the Little Rock (Ark.) Film Festival. Bell still has the original clay sculpture on display in his studio.
In recent years Kevin’s work has circulated in several exhibits throughout Arkansas including the annual Blue Bridge Arts Festival in Newport, Ark., each February. That exhibit has proven successful for Kevin in both selling his art and obtaining new commission work. In 2015 several of his works, along with the works of several other artists, were shown at the Guachoya Cultural Arts Center in Lake Village, Arkansas, and the Grand Prairie Arts Center in Stuttgart, Ark.
A tour of Kevin’s residential studio would not be complete without meeting some of the horses that also call El Paso home. Their names read like a rodeo program: Thunder, Harley, Big Bill, just to name a few. A loud whistle or rustle of the feed sack and they will come running.
Kevin’s bio sums up his artistic talent best, “Kevin’s passion and thirst for knowledge of the old west comes through in his art. You can almost hear the leather creak and smell the aroma of the great outdoors. The romance of the old west may be gone, but the life of the cowboy continues in his drawings, paintings and sculptures.”
